Gainng weight

[Sergio07]

But how much would you recommend? 1-2 pound weekly?

Generally, yeah. I'd try to hit more toward the 2 lbs side for a couple weeks, and once you're consistent with that, back down a bit if you think it's too fast. If I correctly recall what you told me before, there were some weeks you were falling short of your weight gain goals, which indicates to me that you probably need to start off aiming a little more toward the aggressive side of weight gain.

Yeah sometimes I fell short and just hit like .4 pound, I decided to eat more and be consistent, I'll try to hit the 1 pound per week without stress too much about it. (BTW I finally could create my account on Exodus if you question why I didn't post earlier)
Thanks Sean

[Wayne]

I don’t have any guidance on how quickly to let your waist change. I used BBM coaching for nutrition recently and they let my waist fly up surprisingly. It’s not something I would would suggest to someone else so I’m a bit confused myself on “the right thing to do”. I’d just monitor it and if it starts moving quickly it’s probably fat. Defining quickly is hard though

Hi Wayne. That's interesting, and I know each of us is our own case. But if you are open to sharing (and its cool if you don't want to), what was your waist increase and over what amount of time?

Hey Ryan, no probs sharing. It’s not as stark as I thought when I checked the actual data so I may have sensationalised it unfairly in my earlier post. I’ll let you be the judge. I think I was feeling so big that it’s a dark spot in my mind

Waist went from 88.5cm to 98.7cm in around 22 weeks. These are peak/trough measurements not the averages.

[Griff]

Agree with the general recommendations here, with one possible caveat: you're 16 years old--are you still growing taller? If you're still in the midst of a (late) growth spurt you probably need to gain weight faster (still not 3-5lb/week, though...)

Assuming you're pretty sure you're done growing, I like Izzy's recommendations:
http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/cuttin ... erlifting/
Basically long, slow bulks with short, occasional cuts. Spend as much time as possible in a moderate caloric surplus.

Keep adding 0.5 pounds/week over the next year and you can add a lot of solid mass. Your strength gains may be slower--don't worry about adding weight to the bar at some fixed increment, just be consistent.

[Sergio07]

Agree with the general recommendations here, with one possible caveat: you're 16 years old--are you still growing taller? If you're still in the midst of a (late) growth spurt you probably need to gain weight faster (still not 3-5lb/week, though...)

Assuming you're pretty sure you're done growing, I like Izzy's recommendations:
http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/cuttin ... erlifting/
Basically long, slow bulks with short, occasional cuts. Spend as much time as possible in a moderate caloric surplus.

Keep adding 0.5 pounds/week over the next year and you can add a lot of solid mass. Your strength gains may be slower--don't worry about adding weight to the bar at some fixed increment, just be consistent.

I really don't think I could grow taller, my brother who has finished his growth is only 1 cm more than me, from now on until the end of this year I'm going to gain close to the 1 pound per week, later I'll drop down to 0.5 pounds, I really wouldn't like to go on a full cut of 3 months, it's a waste of time, and as you say the most important thing it's to be consistent.
Thanks man.

[RyanB]

I don’t have any guidance on how quickly to let your waist change. I used BBM coaching for nutrition recently and they let my waist fly up surprisingly. It’s not something I would would suggest to someone else so I’m a bit confused myself on “the right thing to do”. I’d just monitor it and if it starts moving quickly it’s probably fat. Defining quickly is hard though

Hi Wayne. That's interesting, and I know each of us is our own case. But if you are open to sharing (and its cool if you don't want to), what was your waist increase and over what amount of time?

Hey Ryan, no probs sharing. It’s not as stark as I thought when I checked the actual data so I may have sensationalised it unfairly in my earlier post. I’ll let you be the judge. I think I was feeling so big that it’s a dark spot in my mind

Waist went from 88.5cm to 98.7cm in around 22 weeks. These are peak/trough measurements not the averages.

Thanks for sharing. I still think that's a good amount, around 4 in. Of course it matters where a person starts and what they're doing with/during that growth. But your info gives me a little perspective, as I'm getting ready to start their 3-day Hypertrophy program and I plan on adding some bodyweight over those 7 weeks.

[lonestar777]

I used BBM coaching for nutrition recently and they let my waist fly up surprisingly.

That’s interesting! I used BBM for nutrition coaching and programming last year and I felt if anything they were conservative with the weight gain. I’m 44 years old, and Leah mentioned I probably wouldn’t be happy with the results if I gained too fast. That being said, I’m on my own now and I’ve gained 15-20 pounds over the last 5 months and my waist measurement has stayed the same, so I’ve been happy with it. I started around 20% body fat and still look about the same. I’ll eventually do some kind of cut, but not any time soon.

[Wayne]

I used BBM coaching for nutrition recently and they let my waist fly up surprisingly.

That’s interesting! I used BBM for nutrition coaching and programming last year and I felt if anything they were conservative with the weight gain. I’m 44 years old, and Leah mentioned I probably wouldn’t be happy with the results if I gained too fast. That being said, I’m on my own now and I’ve gained 15-20 pounds over the last 5 months and my waist measurement has stayed the same, so I’ve been happy with it. I started around 20% body fat and still look about the same. I’ll eventually do some kind of cut, but not any time soon.

It maybe depends on what your goals are when you register. I was looking to gain 10-15lbs and I certainly put on a fair bit (around 23lbs) giving me room to cut back leaving a net gain hopefully.

Hard to say for sure if I would have been happier with slower gains, I left it in their hands on rate of calorie increases. Whether the composition would have been better had I gone slower - I don’t know.

The experience certainly taught me a lot about diet and compliance and I feel better equipped for tracking going forwards. Even a better awareness of food (eg importance of fibre) I think will contribute to my health going forward.

[lonestar777]

The experience certainly taught me a lot about diet and compliance and I feel better equipped for tracking going forwards. Even a better awareness of food (eg importance of fibre) I think will contribute to my health going forward.

Absolutely! I feel like I learned so much about how the nutrition works, what ratios work for me and my goals, getting into the habit of eating right and tracking, etc. I just wanted a meal plan but they did TOO good of a job teaching me the principles so now I don’t need to pay for that anymore.

[Sergio07]

I used BBM coaching for nutrition recently and they let my waist fly up surprisingly.

That’s interesting! I used BBM for nutrition coaching and programming last year and I felt if anything they were conservative with the weight gain. I’m 44 years old, and Leah mentioned I probably wouldn’t be happy with the results if I gained too fast. That being said, I’m on my own now and I’ve gained 15-20 pounds over the last 5 months and my waist measurement has stayed the same, so I’ve been happy with it. I started around 20% body fat and still look about the same. I’ll eventually do some kind of cut, but not any time soon.

It maybe depends on what your goals are when you register. I was looking to gain 10-15lbs and I certainly put on a fair bit (around 23lbs) giving me room to cut back leaving a net gain hopefully.

Hard to say for sure if I would have been happier with slower gains, I left it in their hands on rate of calorie increases. Whether the composition would have been better had I gone slower - I don’t know.

The experience certainly taught me a lot about diet and compliance and I feel better equipped for tracking going forwards. Even a better awareness of food (eg importance of fibre) I think will contribute to my health going forward.

Nice! I may check BBM nutrition coaching, if it's still avalaible, and see if I use it.

[BenM]

Also check out Avatar Nutrition, which is relatively inexpensive. I don't know what BBM provide with nutrition coaching, I assume there's more education and meal planning than just a set of macros and the requisite adjustments, considering how much it costs....

[JohnHelton]

Also check out Avatar Nutrition, which is relatively inexpensive. I don't know what BBM provide with nutrition coaching, I assume there's more education and meal planning than just a set of macros and the requisite adjustments, considering how much it costs....

The Renaissance Periodization templates are also well reviewed.

[BenM]

Also check out Avatar Nutrition, which is relatively inexpensive. I don't know what BBM provide with nutrition coaching, I assume there's more education and meal planning than just a set of macros and the requisite adjustments, considering how much it costs....

The Renaissance Periodization templates are also well reviewed.

Yeah, I own those too, but I find them quite complicated to follow, to be honest. Lots of rules around what to count, what not to count, and differing levels depending on whether it's a hard or easy or non training day etc etc. Avatar is just 'here's your macros' and you can do high or low days. Simples.

I guess it depends if you want to track macros or not. With RP it's not so much required, with Avatar it is.

[JohnHelton]

Also check out Avatar Nutrition, which is relatively inexpensive. I don't know what BBM provide with nutrition coaching, I assume there's more education and meal planning than just a set of macros and the requisite adjustments, considering how much it costs....

The Renaissance Periodization templates are also well reviewed.

Yeah, I own those too, but I find them quite complicated to follow, to be honest. Lots of rules around what to count, what not to count, and differing levels depending on whether it's a hard or easy or non training day etc etc. Avatar is just 'here's your macros' and you can do high or low days. Simples.

I guess it depends if you want to track macros or not. With RP it's not so much required, with Avatar it is.

Yep. I have the RP Templates and haven’t used them. I just haven’t been able to get geared up to follow all the rules. That being said, they seem to work for others. Avatar is cheap too.

[asdf]

Junk is hard to define exactly, but just tend more toward meat and potatoes and less toward cheese sticks and booze.

Booze? The kid is 16!

[Wayne]

Also check out Avatar Nutrition, which is relatively inexpensive. I don't know what BBM provide with nutrition coaching, I assume there's more education and meal planning than just a set of macros and the requisite adjustments, considering how much it costs....

With BBM, for me at least, it was a kick off questionnaire with goals etc and data about yourself. After this I received a pretty good document a few pages long detailing how to count macros and things like supplement suggestions, meal timing, fibre suggestions etc. It also contained my tailored macro recommendations for the week.

Each week after that there was a check in where macros and weight by day were submitted as well as some softer stuff - how training has felt etc. They were very quick to respond to this and usually just adjusted the carbs/fats a little week to week. The weekly check in didn’t seem to take much of their time. There was no formal meal plan.

Any random queries I had were answered promptly as well and a few times they supplied links to articles etc. if I was poking around some details.

In general I had a fair idea on what I was meant to be doing from BBM material previously so for me the main outcome was improved compliance - getting to within 5g if the targets consistently. I think if you were newer to tracking and diet you would get more out of it as they are there for any random queries. I was already consuming a lot of their media so ultimately knew a lot of what I was being told already.

I didn’t get programming from them as the cost of both was quite high. That would have been interesting to have tried as well to see the two together.

[lonestar777]

Wayne’s experience matches closely with mine. I alluded earlier that I signed up because I was too lazy to sort through all the materials and figure the macros out. I wanted someone to take all the guesswork out and just give me a detailed meal plan. It took a week or two to put all the recommendations into practice but the end result worked out better for me. Kind of like having someone give you a program vs. teaching the principles so you can program yourself. I would highly recommend the service for anyone struggling to get their nutrition under control, even if you just do it for a short period of time.

Actually, at the time I signed up SSOC was just getting going and BBM was still affiliated with Starting Strength. I was on the fence about which one to use, and I went with BBM just because I felt they would be better with the nutrition. In hindsight I’m so glad it worked out that way!

[RyanB]

I used BBM coaching for nutrition recently and they let my waist fly up surprisingly.

I’ve gained 15-20 pounds over the last 5 months and my waist measurement has stayed the same

Impressive... good work!

[Wayne]

Wayne’s experience matches closely with mine. I alluded earlier that I signed up because I was too lazy to sort through all the materials and figure the macros out. I wanted someone to take all the guesswork out and just give me a detailed meal plan. It took a week or two to put all the recommendations into practice but the end result worked out better for me. Kind of like having someone give you a program vs. teaching the principles so you can program yourself. I would highly recommend the service for anyone struggling to get their nutrition under control, even if you just do it for a short period of time.

Actually, at the time I signed up SSOC was just getting going and BBM was still affiliated with Starting Strength. I was on the fence about which one to use, and I went with BBM just because I felt they would be better with the nutrition. In hindsight I’m so glad it worked out that way!

Sounds like we were probably doing it at the same time - I was also between SSOC and BBM but wanted to focus on nutrition so went BBM!

[DirtyRed]

But how much would you recommend? 1-2 pound weekly?

Generally, yeah. I'd try to hit more toward the 2 lbs side for a couple weeks, and once you're consistent with that, back down a bit if you think it's too fast. If I correctly recall what you told me before, there were some weeks you were falling short of your weight gain goals, which indicates to me that you probably need to start off aiming a little more toward the aggressive side of weight gain.

Also, .75 lbs is a stupid precise target to attempt to hit considering weight will fluctuate by a pound or two throughout the day.

Serg, look at it over the longer term. If you gain one pound a week, in 20 weeks (FIVE MONTHS), you'll be just under 160 lbs. Do you think you'll be that fat at 160 lbs? Especially if you keep lifting aggressively throughout? ESPECIALLY, if you're the guy I'm thinking of, doing DeanT's above-LP-volume scheme for bench pressing (which I think is a good idea)?

Do 1-2 lbs per week until you're 160 lbs, then reassess. GOMAD is almost certainly overkill, but milk is a very easy and cheap way to get calories and a decent balance of macronutrients, if you aren't lactose intolerant. Add it to any meal.

[Sergio07]

But how much would you recommend? 1-2 pound weekly?

Generally, yeah. I'd try to hit more toward the 2 lbs side for a couple weeks, and once you're consistent with that, back down a bit if you think it's too fast. If I correctly recall what you told me before, there were some weeks you were falling short of your weight gain goals, which indicates to me that you probably need to start off aiming a little more toward the aggressive side of weight gain.

Also, .75 lbs is a stupid precise target to attempt to hit considering weight will fluctuate by a pound or two throughout the day.

Serg, look at it over the longer term. If you gain one pound a week, in 20 weeks (FIVE MONTHS), you'll be just under 160 lbs. Do you think you'll be that fat at 160 lbs? Especially if you keep lifting aggressively throughout? ESPECIALLY, if you're the guy I'm thinking of, doing DeanT's above-LP-volume scheme for bench pressing (which I think is a good idea)?

Do 1-2 lbs per week until you're 160 lbs, then reassess. GOMAD is almost certainly overkill, but milk is a very easy and cheap way to get calories and a decent balance of macronutrients, if you aren't lactose intolerant. Add it to any meal.

Thanks @DirtyRed, appreciate your comment, I agree with you 1lb/week it's a pretty good target that's what I will try to get in the following weeks, I know that building muscle is a slow process, and with fat it happens the same, I think that I'll do what you say, for some time I'll gain ~1lb/week till I hit a goal weight then I'll decide what to do from there.
I've considered drinking milk with my meals to up my calorie intake without changing too much my diet.